Hitting The Road

Friday, July 16 started out very busy. Breakfast, exercise, feeding and medicating the animals, taking Max for a walk and then to the kennel, all before 8a.m.! Scout was expectedly grumpy, while PJ was only mildly concerned by his new surroundings. Max was his usually bouncy self, excited by all the new people he was convinced wanted to pet him. They took Max back to his kennel, and then the cats were taken to their condo. PJ cooperated, and gingerly exited his carrier when given the opportunity, but Scout was having none of it. He greeted the open carrier door with a gutteral growl and hiss. The kennel assistant then tilted Scout's carrier, hoping, I'm guessing, that Scout would just slide on out of that carrier into the kennel, but Scout held his ground. Meeting failure once more, the KA turned the carrier completely vertical and gently shook, but somehow that big, fluffy, ornery kitty managed to remain safely in the carrier. After our gaffaws died down, I went in to help the KA. I reached into the carrier to pull Scout out, but he growled, hissed, and swatted my hand away, so I warned Scout we could do things the hard way if he really wanted. And we did. We disassembled the carrier and picked him up from above. He was not happy, and I think a little bit surprised that we violated his "safe place." Now that everyone was safely tucked away in their new personal spaces, we could go back to the house and pack up the car.

After wrestling with our luggage and all the other things we took with us, and discovering the secret to the delicate puzzle of packing the car, we finally hit the road about a quarter to nine. We were on our way!